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23УДК 008 (47+57)
Cultural Policy as a Self-Independent Type of State Policy
Vladimir S. Luzan*
Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041 Russia 1
Received 6.11.2009, received in revised form 13.11.2009, accepted 20.11.2009
In the modern world, the fact that in the basis of all the «dead ends» of Russia there is only one main fundamental question - the question of individual and collective self-identification, which has become topical in the result of the loss of axiological markers by the modern, becomes more and more obvious. And economics cannot answer this question. In connection with the mentioned, the society comes to understanding that the way out of the given situation will be found only in case the Culture becomes the most important national priority of the country development.
It is the author’s opinion that main contradiction, which interferes with the becoming ofculture as a main factor of the Russian State recovery, is its narrow-minded understanding by the modern politicians, officials and by the main part of the country population as a sphere of leisure and entertainment, but not as a historically formed self-developing and self-regulating system, which obeys objective laws, generates values, norms and traditions, being a treasurer of the nation’s spiritual experience, and the way of nation’s self-conscious formation.
Speaking about realization of the creative potential of culture, the author focus on the a separate type - the type of cultural policy - in the general policy of the State, within which frames one should clearly differentiate a proper cultural policy and an operative management over the current culture-creative processes as two different levels of strategy and tactics of management activity.
In the article cultural policy is perceived as a complex of scientifically based view points and measures for provision of an exhaustive socio-cultural modernization of the society and structural reforms of all the system of the culture-producing institutions; as a system of new principles of proportioning of the state and social components in social and cultural life; as a complex of measures for provision of an anticipatory formation of scientific and educational support of these principles, for provision of a goal-oriented personnel training for competent regulation offuture socio-cultural processes, and what is the main - as a conscious correction of the general content of the native culture.
In the end of the article there is a realization of the defined priorities of the cultural policy becomes the matter of not only a narrow, limited set of people, being professionally connected with the sphere of culture, but of a wide range of specialists, being responsible for public management of socio-economical and socio-political processes. The process of realization must have a regulating influence on mass media activity, publicity, and industry of leisure and show business, which now become sectors of the economical process, using the cultural product as a means offinancial profit deriving. Stating of a new paradigm and imperatives of the modern cultural policy, contributing to departmental closeness overcoming, can and must influence the life of the Russian society.
Keywords: Culture, Cultural policy, Cultural processes, Cultural sphere.
* Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
Point
In the modern world, the fact that in the basis of all the «dead ends» of Russia there is only one main fundamental question - the question of individual and collective self-identification, which has become topical in the result of the loss of axiological markers by the modern, becomes more and more obvious. And economics cannot answer this question. In connection with the mentioned, the society comes to understanding that the way out of the given situation will be found only in case the Culture becomes the most important national priority of the country development.
Understanding of this fact explains the increased interest, having appeared during last decades, towards the multi-level and polysemantic phenomenon of culture, which has been stimulated not so by the problems of theoretical development, as by the objective demands of practice. «In the modern world, the growing interest towards existing cultural variety preservation, towards rich cultural traditions of different nations, awareness of cultural unification danger in the result of globalization, intercultural problems and conflicts turn out to be one snowball in the problems of international security, peaceful coexistence, cultures’ dialogue and their integration within the world society». [23]
Culture has become a strategic priority of the economy of developed countries. It is connected with the fact that culture has managed to generate in itself a wide sector of creative industries. Precisely the culture accumulates positive effects in various spheres by means of cooperation of cultural organizations with other social subjects and thus developing tourism, attracting investments, contributing to salvation of social-economical problems, this way, making weak points become strong ones.
The main contradiction, which interferes with the becoming of culture as a main
factor of the Russian State recovery, is its narrow-minded understanding by the modern politicians, officials and by the main part of the country population as a sphere of leisure and entertainment, but not as a historically formed self-developing and self-regulating system, which obeys objective laws, generates values, norms and traditions, being a treasurer of the nation’s spiritual experience, and the way of nation’s self-conscious formation.
Beside the main contradiction, there is a whole row of reasons within the cultural sphere itself, which prevent a full-rate development of the civil society. For-example:
1) finiteness of forms and methods, being practiced in the process of activity of cultural institutions of all the levels;
2) orientation to separate social groups, mainly to children, youth and retired people. Economically active grown-up population, first of all people of middle age, is almost excluded from the view point of cultural institutions’ activity;
3) lack of control over the cultural policy subjects’ activity, absence of methodological support of the process;
4) existence of alternative institutions, providing cultural services to the population for the purpose of commercial profit deriving. For example, shopping and entertainment malls, pubs, cafes, and various youth centers. A special place among the new-comers of the cultural activity field belongs to the modern cinema-theatres, which use one of the most popular genres of the modern art - cinema.
Salvation of the underlined problems is possible only on condition that there is a separate type - the type of cultural policy - in the general policy of the State, within which frames one should clearly differentiate a proper cultural policy and an operative management over the current culture-creative processes as two different levels of strategy and tactics of management activity.
The proper cultural policy is perceived as «a complex of scientifically based view points and measures for provision of an exhaustive socio-cultural modernization of the society and structural reforms of all the system of the culture-producing institutions; as a system of new principles of proportioning of the state and social components in social and cultural life; as a complex of measures for provision of an anticipatory formation of scientific and educational support of these principles, for provision of a goal-oriented personnel training for competent regulation of future socio-cultural processes, and what is the main - as a conscious correction of the general content of the native culture». [24]
Law of the Russian Federation «Fundamental Principles of the Russian Federation Concerning Culture» defines the State Cultural Policy (the policy of the State in the sphere of cultural development) as «a complex of principles and norms, the State being governed by in its activity, concerning culture preservation, development and expansion, and also the State’s activity itself in the sphere of culture». [9]
On the level of modern scientific notions of the essence of culture, what-ever global approaches (in particular - definition of the top goals and tasks of cultural policy) concerning cultural problems are impossible without correlation of culture with the main tendencies of civilization development as in the pan-human scale, so in a local one. If under civilization we understand «a special, historically formed method of existence of a large social community of people, its specific form of self-organization and regulation of its collective life-sustaining activity processes» [24], then within this civilization system its culture plays a role of a mechanism, performing the following main functions as:
- generalization of historical experience of the society existence;
- accumulation of this experience in the form of a system of axiological orientations;
- presentation of the given orientations in different languages of social communication and realization of these socio-communicative contacts;
- regulation of society’s practical vital activity by means of socio-cultural norms of collective and individual existence;
- revelation and apprehension of characteristics and features of one’s own specifics in the form of identity images (i.e. society’s subjective notions concerning itself, concerning peculiarities of the society’s fate and its historical «mission») and their purposeful reproduction in technologies and products of various types of activity.
It is testified by historical experience that the objective law concerning the increasing role of culture, as a cultural policy’s object in social development, is acting. And it is caused by the following factors:
- Humane factor. Culture is developing together with the human world. That is why culture’s condition and its fate is immediately dependant on the person’s social position. Culture is growing, when people achieve their rights, freedoms and favorable conditions of their life activity are being observed in the given society; when democracy triumphs and every citizen gets a possibility of self-perfection and to continue his potentials’ development. It takes place far not in every country, but the leading tendency is the following: people’s acquiring freedom forms necessary preconditions for cultural progress.
In this sense, a democratic state must not only take care of creating conditions for its citizens’ happy life, but of their personal development as well. Under such a type of state world order, a man becomes spiritually rich, treats his life in
a creative way and is socially active. There is also a purely practical sense in an up-brining of such miscellaneous persons: precisely such type of creators is «the locomotives» of the progress, and, finally, they influence on the prosperity of the State.
In Russian realities there are comparatively few creative people, being spiritually rich, successfully fulfilling their social roles as in their own life, so in the industrial and social sphere of Russia. According to the data, given in the report of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation «The Culture and the Future of Russia. A New Vision» [7], there are 13% of such people in large cities (regional centers), and 9-10% in (comparatively small) towns of regional subordination and villages. The increase of spiritually developed, creative and socially active people number is the main target of the State.
- Social factor. In a wide sense, society embraces in itself all the social life being the basis of the pyramid, while culture being its top. The top cannot be steady and fruitful, if it rests on a weak foundation. What-ever significant could be some cultural achievements, existing in our days in an undeveloped social surrounding, they cannot define by themselves the level of culture on the whole. On order culture’s advanced position in comparison with all the other social spheres could be long lasting, steady and financially efficient, it must be based on the progress of all the society. In historical scale, such a progress is obvious and culture acquires additional impulses for its progressive and successive development.
- Scientific-informative factor. Its meaning has gone beyond the limits of culture itself and national communities on the whole; it has acquired a global character. There are certain reasonable judgments, concerning the fact that science and informatization become the leading preconditions of society’s post-industrial development, of its progress in such spheres as
social mobility and stratification, way of life, education, qualification, up-brining, leisure and so on. High rates of modern scientific-technical and informational development have strong influence on the rising of culture, in particular on the rising of its intellectual and heuristic values.
- General civilizational factor. Modern civilization has unprecedented achievements in various spheres. They cannot be compared with anything, what was created in the past. At the same time, today’s industrial civilization experiences a profound crisis. In some directions it is approaching the limits of its growth, where one can vividly observe dead ended motion vectors of the ecological sphere. These ambiguous contradictory civilizational phenomena and processes have a serious influence on culture. We observe a significant reaggregation of the structural elements of culture, which takes place to the prejudice of public morality and high aesthetics.
Consequently, we are firstly and by all means to raise the level of those components, which are referred to the man’s socialization and to expansion of his general cultural (first of all, intellectual and moral) horizon. Relevant contradictions will surely remain, but all the real sources and possibilities in a man, in the society and in the culture itself should be used for optimal and authentically humanistic development of the social being.
Example
Being characteristic to the modern social-cultural sphere, culture universalization is dialectically connected to the variety of its forms and content. Regional «mottling» of Russia makes this connection still deeper and more important.
«Region is a spiritual potential of the country, is a source of its cultural axiological variety, which supports its entirety, preserves and enriches the culture of the country». [19]
Being a cultural potential of Russia, its region can realize its values only on condition that it is in an equitable dialogue with other regional parts of the Russian culture.
Regional culture is a polysemantic notion. It is a peculiar world, which is, on one hand, characterized by solitude, closeness, circularity on the daily routine, striving to preserve certain immunity from innovations. Sometimes, it is rather inhospitable to some innovations, to foreign values, and sticks to a peculiar changing of other axiological systems. On the other hand, it is an open culture, striving outwards, to the dialogue with other cultures, to constant accession of new axiological treasures. Regional culture is faced as inwardly, so outwardly as well.
The hope for possibility of Russian culture renewal by means of regional cultures’ values cannot fail to combine with the anxiety that for the long period of monopolistic approach towards the regional culture, it has been deprived of most of its created values. One should not forget that the region can serve as a cultural reservoir of the country, but at the same time it can have also a negative influence on its culture. In this sense, one should take special measures in order to preserve the regional heritage and originality.
We can consider the problem of formation of regional culture policy on the example of the Krasnoyarsk region. Today, the region takes the second place among all the Subjects of the Russian Federation according to the area of its territory. The Krasnoyarsk region is very cosmopolitan and differs by its high variety of nations, being the result of complex ethno-cultural, demographic and political processes. Serious changes in the regional national contingent took place in 1990-s and were accompanied by tough reforms in political and socio-economical spheres, by the boom of national self-consciousness and formation of new sovereign states on the postsoviet territory, by a high migration activity of
its population and the demographic development crisis.
Data analysis of the All-Russia population count in 2002 as at present ethnographic situation in the Krasnoyarsk region has proved that the list of nationalities, inhabiting the territory of the region, has been extended from 124 to 137. One of the main reasons of the fact is the boom of national self-consciousness in 1990-s and liberalization of the matter of ethnic self-identification.
Being under the influence of actual sociocultural tendencies, the Krasnoyarsk region synthesizes two models of cultural policy, where the main role is played by the State. The first one is «a state-investor», which presupposes, that the state purposefully invests organization of the net of territorial centers of advanced cultural growth and development and production of cultural values, new senses and treasures. The second one is «a state-engineer», which provides the sphere of culture with new technologies, technical means and a powerful infrastructure and constructs a multi-layered cultural space.
Formation of the Krasnoyarsk region cultural space has passed several stages. The given process has been influenced by various factors. Uniqueness of its geographical position, its natural conditions, the culture of its native peoples, amateur and folk arts, life and traditions of its cosmopolitan population, which have inhabited its territory voluntary and by force, have played not the last role in the mentioned process.
Having been historically formed, the Krasnoyarsk region cultural space changed its geographical borders in 1991, after the Khakass Autonomous Region and the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) and the Evenki Autonomous Areas had actually withdrawn from the Region, what naturally influenced the organization of its sociocultural activity. Here, intensive processes of society’s democratization played a certain role.
«One should understand that, though being very advantageous for the social life, democratization carries some elements of simplification, elements of mass and commercialized culture in to the cultural life. Market is far from being a trouble-free sphere, which contributes to a cultural explosion». [22]
The modern cultural process of the Krasnoyarsk region is realized in accordance with the Main strategic strands of the cultural policy of the Krasnoyarsk region, having been developed and authorized for the period of 20092020. According to these strands the strategic target of the cultural policy is a formation of an integral socio-cultural space, which will provide development of creative initiatives, as a basis of a steady and dynamic growth of the Region.
Achievement of the cultural policy target is fulfilled in the main directions, within which frames the following complex of tasks is formulated:
1. Identity. Formation of regional cultural self-identification of the region’s population.
2. Integration. Inclusion of the Krasnoyarsk region culture into the All-Russian and the world cultural space.
3. Innovation. Promotion of appearance of innovative models of thinking and development of the Krasnoyarsk region creative potential.
4. Institutions. Preservation, development and modernization of the net of culture institutions.
5. Industry. Creative economy development support.
Cultural policy strategy of the Krasnoyarsk region has been worked out in accordance with the constitutional rights of its citizens and cultural-historical peculiarities of the Region. The main vectors of the cultural policy presuppose formation of a new paradigm of thinking of all the subjects of the cultural activity, being caused by socio-economical and agglomeration processes and
also by realization of the project «Krasnoyarsk Agglomeration Complex Development up to 2020».
By 2020 realization of the State policy high-priority targets in the sphere of culture will allow optimizing and modernizing the activity of the Krasnoyarsk region cultural institutions, of the existing net of state and municipal institutions, will allow creating the conditions, which will provide an equal and free access of population to all the specter of benefits of culture and high-quality services in this sphere, developing creative potential of the native people, achieving drastic changes in the economical situation of the given branch, will contribute to further integration of the Region and to formation of its positive image in the Russian and the world cultural space.
Results
The main part of various processes of the society’s cultural being goes on spontaneously, being ruled only by the underlying laws of social self-organization of people in their collective life activity. But, at the same time, some components of this complex process are subject to a rational and target-oriented regulation, to stimulation of some tendencies and stoppage of others, being performed from the position of a certain vision and understanding of the strategic ways, which the given civilization is moving along. Thus, the complex of measures, concerning artificial regulation of development tendencies of spiritual-axiological aspects of the social being, can be called «a cultural policy».
The most important principle of definition of cultural policy targets and tasks is concluded in comprehension of culture ambivalence and polysemanticism of its senses and contents. And it determines a special complexity of management strategy and tactics in the sphere of culture and a necessity of a multi-level
approach towards regulation of socio-cultural processes. In connection with the mentioned, cultural policy must: firstly, be an integral part of all the strands of the State policy without any exceptions, reflecting its spiritual-axiological and moral-normative aspects; secondly, become the most important component of the social policy, which can be only complex, i.e. social-cultural-educative under the modern conditions, and it becomes possible only under condition of organization of interagency interaction; thirdly, it must form cultural policy as such, as a special line of state and state-regulated social activity, being directed to stimulation of socially admissible and preferable spiritual-axiological and social-normative manifestations of a man, forms and contents of his social and individual being.
Thus, we can define the following priorities of the Russian Federation cultural policy for the nearest future:
a) preservation and development of the integral and informational space of Russia;
b) preservation and development of multinational heritage of peoples of Russia;
c) preservation of the native system of artistic education;
d) integration into the world cultural process and formation of Russia’s positive image abroad.
Realization of the defined priorities of the cultural policy becomes the matter of not only a narrow, limited set of people, being professionally connected with the sphere of culture, but of a wide range of specialists, being responsible for public management of socio-economical and socio-political processes. The process of realization must have a regulating influence on mass media activity, publicity, and industry of leisure and show business, which now become sectors of the economical process, using the cultural product as a means of financial profit deriving. Stating of a new paradigm and imperatives of the modern cultural policy, contributing to departmental closeness overcoming, can and must influence the life of the Russian society.
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